How to estimate basic expenses for your mobile app development

Whether you have an app idea or just have ghostly intentions to bring your ideas to life, actually, it doesn’t matter. In any case, you will “face the music” while reckoning the app development cost.

Mobile app development has so many different variables, and its price can range anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000.

But how to figure out the happy middle?

We are here to help you with estimation of basic expenses for your mobile app development.

Steps of mobile app development

Let’s go through the development process step by step to make clear what the money is actually paid for.

We develop the application in conformity with Software Development Life Cycle.

A system development life cycle is composed of a number of clearly defined and distinct work phases, which are used by our app developers to plan design, build, test, and deliver the final product to the client.

Step 6. Publishing & Maintenance

You can submit the app to app stores by yourself or ask app development company to assist you.

Also, the work on an app doesn’t end even after its release. Every app needs updates and customer support.

Note, that post-release maintenance isn’t included in initial cost estimates.

The drivers of development price

Generally, there are three main factors that can influence the development cost.

1. The cost of labor

Is the primary driver of price. For instance, you can hire offshore developers that will be exponentially cheaper than if you have hired domestic developers.

The cost of labor depends on developers’ origin as well.

Indian development companies are famous for its cheap prices at the beginning, and numerous stories about “oops, something's going wrong with your app” later.

Needless to say, if you buy cheaply, you pay dearly.

As low prices and high quality are what everybody is looking for, turn your attention to developers from Eastern Europe and from Ukraine in particular. Today this country has the largest information technology labor force in Europe.

In 2015, Ukraine earned about $2.5 billion from exports of the country’s software and IT services. And it continues to export billions of dollars worth of software to the world every year.

2. App development team

Is the second thing that can influence the number of zeros in your final bill.The development team can be basic or extended and it is determined by project requirements.

Basic team includes:

A project manager, a person who communicates with the client and cares about delivering all project requirements to the development team.

UI/UX designer, a person on which depends on the app’s structure and visual appearance.

2 developers (iOS, Android).

A quality assurance engineer, who monitors every phase of the software development process. He makes sure that new products work before they are released to the public.

In case the app requires a backend infrastructure to develop an API, then a backend developer also joins the team.

An extended team may consist of:

A project manager

2-4 iOS or Android developers (per platform)

UI/UX designer

Backend developer

An admin panel designer

A quality assurance engineer

3. Project complexity

The main factor that drives the final cost. It can be influenced by the following variables:

The number of devices and OS

You need to consider what type of app are you building.

Apple iOS is a better choice when you are intending to reach more financially solvent users.

Android platform has a broader penetration among the middle income users.

Aiming to reach as many users as possible, you should build your app on both platforms.

An iOS app should support the latest and the previous versions of iPhone and iOS versions as well.

The world of Android devices is much more manifold. So, you need to take into account the size of the market share for each Android device, while deciding which one to support.

The more devices you choose, the more time is needed to adapt the application for various screen sizes, resolutions, hardware specs.

App features

There are a lot of different features that your app can possess. Their number and type directly affect the technical complexity of the project.

The most common are:

Third-party integrations

Integration of third-party libraries, frameworks, and services allows to provide some app’s functionality faster and even cheaper than developing a custom solution.

We may use ready-made solutions to implement payment features, real-time chats, geolocation functions or social media sharing instruments. For instance, the tight integration of your app with social media can be accomplished with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other social network APIs.

Backend development

It’s not the necessary part of the app, but if your app will operate with big amount of data, it needs a backend. Backend enables the exchange of data between a mobile application and a database.

Medium complexity apps

Apps in this category may require the integration of third-party solution. For instance, for providing an app with payment features or real-time chats. Medium complexity apps may include customized UI features, integration with APIs, and a simple backend server.

According to the App Solutions rate, it could be estimated from $ 35K to $50K.

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